Well. Well. Well. A little bird just chirped that Nokia is officially coming back to the Kenyan market as early as next week.
TechArena, reports that HMD Global, the company that now own the Nokia brand, has a launched planned for next week for a couple of the new devices. Although official communication from the company is yet to reach us, we have enough reason to believe these claims.
The Return
HMD, launched the OG Nokia 3310, the Nokia 3, 5 and 6 smartphones in South Africa last month but is yet to start selling them. The company has already sent out invites for a Nigeria launch set to happen on the 25th of July and reports point to a July 27th launch in Kenya.
Read More: Nokia 3310 (2017) Confirmed for South Africa and Nigeria but Not Kenya
There’s no word on which devices will make it to Kenya, but going by what we saw in South Africa, we will probably get the whole Nokia lineup here as well.
The new Nokia devices, including the 3310, have been doing really well in the Chinese and European markets and depending on how well HMD prices the Nokia handsets locally, we could see a great shake up.
The Big Bang?
Despite Nokia betting on nostalgia and previous experience of their phones being durable and of great quality, the Kenyan smartphone market is one that is driven by price, the success of Infinix serves as the best example. If Nokia is going to compete effectively and even grab some market share, if must not make the same mistakes Motorola and Xiaomi did.
When Xiaomi announced that they would be officially coming to Kenya, with the promise of “better quality devices at affordable prices” geeks everywhere were unsettled, we were excited. One year later and we hardly see anything, even a speck of Xiaomi on the smartphone map in Kenya.
Motorola followed suit. The company even had an official event to launch the smartphones and since February 28, I have not seen any Motorola handset along the streets. Another heartbreak.
Both these companies made the mistake of pricing their devices too high, bringing in old phones while there are much newer ones availabe and choosing the wrong distributors.
Dear, Nokia. Be wise. Don’t over price your devices, don’t take too long to bring in the new smartphones (emulate Samsung) and be smart when it comes to distribution and more importantly, don’t be stingy with the review units 😀
Below is a spec sheet of all the Nokia smartphones we expect to see next week:
Nokia 3, 5 and 6 Specifications
| NOKIA 3 | NOKIA 5 | NOKIA 6 | |
| Display | |||
| Type | IPS LCD | IPS LCD | IPS LCD |
| Size | 5.0" | 5.2" | 5.5" |
| Resolution | 1280*720 | 1280*720 | 1920*1080 |
| Protection | Gorilla Glass | Gorilla Glass | Gorilla Glass 3 |
| Platform | |||
| Operating System | Android 7.0 Nougat | Android 7.1.1 | Android 7.1.1 |
| Chipset | Mediatek MT6737 | Snapdragon 430 | Snapdragon 430 |
| CPU | Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 | Octa-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 | Octa-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 |
| GPU | Mali-T720MP1 | Adreno 505 | Adreno 505 |
| Memory | |||
| RAM | 2GB | 2GB | 3GB |
| Internal | 16GB | 16GB | 32GB |
| External | microSD, up to 256GB | microSD, up to 256GB | microSD, up to 256GB |
| Network | |||
| Technology | 4G LTE | 4G LTE | 4G LTE |
| SIM | Dual SIM (Nano) | Dual SIM (Nano) | Dual SIM (Hybrid slot) |
| Camera | |||
| Main | 8 MP, f/2.0 | 13 MP, f/2.0, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash | 16 MP, f/2.0, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash |
| Front | 8 MP, f/2.0 | 8 MP, f/2.0 | 8 MP, f/2.0 |
| Battery | |||
| Size | 2630mAh | 3000mAh | 3000mAh |
| Type | Li-Ion | Li-Ion | Li-Ion |
| Colors | Silver White, Matte Black, Tempered Blue, Copper White | Tempered Blue, Silver, Matte Black, Copper | Arte Black, Matte Black, Tempered Blue, Silver, Copper |
| Features | - | Fingerprint (front-mounted) | Fingerprint (front-mounted), Dolby Atmos sound enhancement |
| Price | TBA | TBA | TBA |
|---|
Excited about this news? Or do you think they will hit a wall?
